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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24100948">holy orange bottles</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton'>Areiton</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Future Fic, Gen, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Protective Harley Keener, Sickfic, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric, brief mention of child abuse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:49:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,347</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24100948</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He prays, something he hasn’t done since he was a child. </p>
<p>The age of miracles and heroes has passed, but maybe. </p>
<p>Maybe one more. </p>
<p>Dear god, grant him one more. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harley Keener &amp; Tony Stark, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, James "Rhodey" Rhodes &amp; Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>234</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>holy orange bottles</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic was encouraged by VerdantMoth and inspired by Taylor Swift's</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMoW5G5LU08">Soon You'll Get Better</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>and that really is all the warning you should need.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>This is the thing--he hovers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hovers because Peter died in his arms, and he undid it and almost died, and by the time the world was set to rights, his arm replaced by a shining metal thing, Harley was at Peter’s side, both of them endlessly young and beautiful. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They fell in love, sometime in the four months he lay in a coma, and Peter graduated from Midtown and he woke up to a world as different as it was good, and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hovers</span>
  </em>
  <span> because he knows Peter, knows he’ll never give up Spider-man, but he watched his son die once, and he’s not sure he’ll survive it a second time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he hovers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hovers, and even still--he doesn’t notice. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Peter sleeps a lot. He slumps exhausted into Tony on the couch, snuggles into Harley during movie night, snores under Morgan’s bony knees and against Rhodey’s thigh and under Pepper’s gentle hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s comfortable here, with us,” Tony says and Harley bites at his lip. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What if it’s more than that?” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Morgan’s hair is tangled in his metal fingers, a laugh on her lips, and it’s at odds with the tiny room in the medical wing where he’s never spent much time. He’s always pushed into the room where Rhodey Steve Natasha Bruce </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pepper</span>
  </em>
  <span> sat under doctor’s care. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can go back,” Pepper says, untangling their daughter from him, her eyes soft and warm. “You don’t have to wait with us.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He loves her for understanding. He kisses her forehead, and slips through the door separating him from Peter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter, who is dozing on the exam table, curled around Harley’s hand and pillowed with Tony’s sweatshirt, a pile of electrodes taped to his skin. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You lasted longer than we thought,” Harley murmurs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tony huffs, and Harley looks up at him, wide wet eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey,” he soothes, and he doesn’t want this role, doesn’t want to coax one child through the loss of another. “Hey, it’s ok, Harls. It’s ok.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you remember what you told me, when we met?” Harley asks, a million miles and lives away from that surly little boy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He remembers. Of course he remembers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I fix things. That’s what I do.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fix this,” Harley demands, voice raw, and Tony nods.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a promise he doesn’t know how to keep. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“We think,” Helen says, softly. Gently. “That the effects of the soul stone and your mutation are fighting.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter stares at her, and Tony--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tony stares at Peter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He should ask questions, reassure his boy, hold Peter’s hand because he can see it’s trembling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He listens, half aware and dazed, while Harley does, while Helen and Bruce explain something he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hates</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he watches Peter. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Life changes. Drastic and small, top to bottom, life changes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Drastic--the boys move into the mansion, into the dusty unused wing that gives them privacy but keeps them close enough that Tony is underfoot constantly. He paints the sitting room and kitchenette and the sunroom where Peter likes to sit and watch Morgan playing, bright yellow and sky blue and a horrid shade of green that they argue about while Peter grins at him, alive in a way that is heart-breakingly rare. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Small--tiny orange bottles line the bathroom shelves, days fill with doctor appointments and therapy sessions, and naps between because now--now, their new normal is resting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I miss Spider-man,” Peter mumbles against his side. Harley is with Pepper, and the two of them are alone in the Mansion, and he’s curled against Tony’s side, a slighter weight then he’s ever been. “I hate this,” he adds, and there’s a hint of petulance in his tone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shhh,” Tony soothes, rubbing his trembling back. It’s sunny and warm and Peter is shivering against him. “You’ll be better soon, swinging around the city and giving us all heart attacks.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you think so?” Peter asks, sleepily and Tony blinks back tears. “I don’t think so, Mr. Stark.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He cries, alone, in the silence of his shop, with DUM-E and U watching. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He cries, great shaking sobs that remind him of a different shop, a different time, of ash on his hands and a desperate hopelessness and a ringing silence. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He prays, now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he’s pouring pills out of holy orange bottles. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he’s holding Peter as he throws up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he’s laying, sleepless, next to Pepper. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he’s sitting next to Harley, belligerent and drunk and clumsy in his grief. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He prays for a miracle. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tony is scared--terrified--that he used up his miracles, when he brought back his son and half the universe with him, when he </span>
  <em>
    <span>survived.</span>
  </em>
  
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He says it like a mantra. When Peter is sleeping and he adjusts a blanket. When the boys are slumped against each other at the table. When Morgan perches on the couch between them, the three curled around each other like puppies, his beating heart outside his body. When he’s watching Peter working, slowly, but still working, in the workshop. When Peter looks at him, wet eyed and shivering weak, vomit flecking his mouth. He says it, like if he says it enough, a bastardized rosary, it’ll be </span>
  <em>
    <span>true. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Soon, you’ll be better.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He is grateful, and bitter, that May is gone, dead in the aftermath of the Decimation, that she does not have to watch her son, </span>
  <em>
    <span>their son</span>
  </em>
  <span>, withering before her eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No parent should have to bury their child, he thinks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No parent should have to bury them </span>
  <em>
    <span>twice. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Rhodey finds him, because Rhodey always finds him, in the workshop the night Helen says, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m sorry.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She cried, when she said it, when she laid the science and scans out, and he has never hated science, but he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hated</span>
  </em>
  <span> it, then. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter Parker was dying. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And nothing they were doing, </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> do, was enough to stop it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rhodey slips into the ‘shop and slips around him, and holds him while he sobs, when he screams grief and fury into his friend’s broad chest, the safest place he’s ever known. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rhodey holds him while he falls apart, a complete, broken mess. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when Tony dries his eyes, Rhodey walks at his shoulder, a silent steady support, while he goes to take care of his family. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The world gets smaller, in stages. The city and the Mansion, and the boys’ wing, and Peter’s bedroom--smaller and smaller, a narrowing that makes him ache. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter deserves the whole world, not this sky blue room and windows full of dreary sky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Orange bottles wink at him from the bureau. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have to take care of Harley,” Peter says, one afternoon. He sounds lucid, vibrant and awake and alive, and it </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurts</span>
  </em>
  <span> because it won’t last. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pretty sure that’s your job now, spider-baby.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tony,” Peter says, softly and he blinks back tears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know how to do this. How to lose Peter, and survive. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to know how. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please,” Peter asks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, Pete,” he says, soft, helpless, and Peter smiles at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d do anything, </span>
  <em>
    <span>had done everything</span>
  </em>
  <span>, for that smile. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He prays to God, something he hasn’t done since the first time Howard hit him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The age of miracles and heroes has passed, but maybe. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe one more. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dear god, grant him one more. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Peter’s breath, labored and wheezing, is the most precious sound in the universe, because it means he’s alive. Harley is curled in the bed around him, weak and pale against his sheets, in a sky blue room with empty orange bottles rattling like rosaries when another sound fills the night, the familiar whine of repulsors and the armor. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks up, a smile on his lips, because Rhodey deserves that, and his heart stops as Rhodey’s eyes meet his, a vial clutched in his hand, and wild hope in his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Carol sent something,” he blurts. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He sits next to his son, sleeping, pale and thin and alive. Still alive, an orange elixir from some far flung planet dripping into his veins. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watches and he whispers, a mantra, prayer, rosary, promise--”Soon you’ll be better.” </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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